Alumni celebrate Ivies Weekend on the West Coast

While Bowdoin students celebrate Ivies on the football field, alums in San Francisco will be having a party of their own. Nalgenes, Bowdoin logs, and the "spirit of Ivies" will appear on the West Coast this Saturday for the first ever San Francisco Ivies, an event organized by alumni from the Class of 2008.

"We're extremely fortunate to have a really huge Bowdoin community out here," said Kate Ambush '08, who helped plan the event. "We were kind of hanging out and we thought, 'Hey, Ivies is coming soon...wouldn't it be great if we could hold the same kind of event here in San Francisco?'"

"There are so many Bowdoin people in the area that we see on a regular basis, so we were just really excited to try to get everyone together in one place at one time," Ambush added.

Ambush began planning San Francisco Ivies with Lauren Duerksen '08 and Andrea Aduna '08 in early April. What began as a "little picnic of Bowdoin people" in Dolores Park blossomed into a full-blown event. Duerksen and Aduna contacted the Office of Alumni Relations, which sent out an invitation to alums living in the Bay Area.

Alums from Denver, Los Angeles and New York will also travel to the West Coast for the event.

"We thought it would be really awesome and also a little bit funny if we could get the alumni office to help us out," said Ambush. "Usually they hold a networking event in January and this year it didn't happen. We were pretty bummed about that because it's a really good chance to meet people," said Ambush.

In the spirit of Ivies, Ambush, Duerksen and Aduna are encouraging attendees to wear as much Bowdoin gear as possible. They are also planning to make Bowdoin logs and hang up Bowdoin alumni signs at the park.

"Hopefully people will bring their own adult beverages, [preferably in] Nalgenes," said Aduna. Duerksen also contacted Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols, who sent autographed snap bracelets.

"We actually also talked about getting a band, but I think we kind of started the process of organizing a little too late," said Duerksen. "But hopefully next year we'll go bigger. We just want everything to be Bowdoin-themed."

The official invitation for the event declares, "Just because you've graduated doesn't mean you can't continue to celebrate Ivies!" The Facebook event page encourages attendees to "grab those straw alumni hats, polos and Bean Boots."

Currently, 47 alums have said they will attend on the Facebook event page, but Ambush is hoping for "at least 70 people to show up."

"I really do hope that we get a large representation of different classes to show up," added Ambush. "I think it would be really inspirational to show that people care about Bowdoin events."

Although they do not have any other events planned in the near future, Aduna said she would "love to coordinate things with the alumni office."

Duerksen added that she is interested in making San Francisco Ivies an annual event.

For now, though, the three are just crossing their fingers for good weather.

"We'll see what the turnout is on Saturday, but we told everybody in case there's rain to meet in Smith Union," laughed Duerksen. "Hopefully we'll be able to find a bar somewhere!"